In 1982, Edward and Nancy Sorel began collaborating on a series of "First Encounters" for The Atlantic that would continue for fourteen years. Each narrative, researched and written by Nancy, detailed the initial meeting of two famous individuals.
These true and invariably intriguing confrontations required, Sorel admitted, a more nuanced approach than his caricatures. He produced some of his most complex and beautiful drawings for the series, each bristling with expressive details, characteristic gestures, and telling expressions. Intricate patterns and intense colors heighten the relationship between the paired figures. But despite the multitude of competing shapes, lines, colors, and details, each drawing conveys an overall compositional elegance.
These drawings were collected in the Sorels' 1994 volume First Encounters, published by Alfred A. Knopf.
